


All Through The Night

by kayabiter



Category: Cursed (TV 2020)
Genre: Alcohol, Arthur (Cursed) (Background), Banter, Christmas, Christmas Caroling, Crack, Dinadan (Arthurian) (Background), Drunken Shenanigans, Elaine of Astolat - Freeform, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Galahad (Arthurian) (Background), Idiots in Love, Infiltration, Kaze (Cursed) (Background), Lynette - Freeform, M/M, Merlin (Cursed) (Mentioned), Morgana | Igraine (Cursed) (Background), Mutual Pining, Pym (Cursed) (Background), Pym (Cursed) (Mentioned), Red Spear (Cursed) (Mentioned), Squirrel (Cursed) (Mentioned), Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28321584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayabiter/pseuds/kayabiter
Summary: The night before the Yule feast, Gawain was trying to brew some apple cider, simple as that. But something went a tad wrong, and he ended up brewing a lot of trouble. The only logical solution involved venturing into the enemy territory. Naturally, he invited Lancelot, his mate, his brother, his buddy, to tag along.Lancelot, who just happened to walk past the kitchens, sighed, adjusted the grip on the torch he'd been carrying for the man for a good part of the year, and followed him into the crisp winter night. After all, someone had to make sure the knight would not get captured by the paladins besieging the castle.
Relationships: Gawain | The Green Knight/The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 41





	1. The Orkney's Special Brew

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas, Cursed ones :)

When Lancelot found Gawain, it was by accident — he had just been following the trail of savoury, sweet scent through the winding passages and corridors of the keep, attracted by the underlying hint of spices. Wandering into the kitchens, he was surprised to see that they were abandoned, not a soul save for someone humming merrily in the far corner, half-hidden by garlands of garlic and herbs dangling from the ceiling beams.

Sneaking closer, Lancelot leant against the wall and watched curiously how Gawain stirred the simmering brew in one of the three cast-iron cauldrons. It looked like a magical potion, but judging by the scent, there was only honey, cloves, and an ungodly amount of apple cider. The entire kitchen smelled like a very drunk apple orchard.

“Follow me in merry measure,” Gawain sang under his breath, cutting more apples with inspired air that made him look both younger and more foolish — not that Lancelot minded. The knight had a sweet if untrained voice; the deep, husky tones of it fell pleasantly on his ears. He couldn’t help a small smile, watching how the man nodded along and tapped his foot, as if impatient to begin a jig already. He was, actually, a good dancer—not that it was a big surprise.

Then Gawain turned around, the cutting board clutched tightly in his hands, shiny apple pieces strewn across it. “While I tell of Yuletide treasure… Fuck!”

The fruits went flying when the knight fell into a fighting stance, brandishing a board like a shield, and Lancelot belatedly realised that perhaps creeping up on a fellow warrior was not a good idea. To his immense relief, when Gawain saw it was him, his wildly gleaming green eyes softened, and he lowered the board.

“Oh—Lancelot,” he exhaled, and then chuckled, awkwardly wiping at his forehead with one hand. It was, indeed, hot in the confined space, with the lone window shutters securely latched. Lancelot could attest to that as well, sweat beading his back under the heavy cloak he had still not taken off after the patrol. “You startled me.”

“Sorry,” he muttered, throat closing with embarrassment, and coughed. “I didn’t mean to.”

“No, it’s alright,” Gawain hurried to reassure, and looked down at the apples scattered on the floor. “Damn.”

Without saying a word, Lancelot stepped closer and crouched on the floor, picking up the neatly cut pieces and gathering them in his palm. In a moment, Gawain joined him, having exchanged the board for a bowl he placed between them. For a short while, they worked in silence, only the simmer of the cider, the crackle of the fire and the howl of the wind in the chimney filling the air.

Usually, Lancelot quickly grew agitated when others did not speak, unsure whether he was still welcome if people did not address him directly. But with Gawain, the awkwardness melted along with the frost on his cloak, until there was nothing left of it.

All the while, the knight kept sneaking glances at him, and when only the last two pieces were left on the floor, Lancelot, at last, stopped pretending not to notice and looked back. Immediately, Gawain gave him a wide grin, the one that he couldn’t help but mirror with a faint smile.

“Any trouble in the woods?” the knight asked, straightening, and Lancelot shook his head as he followed suit and stepped closer with the intent to help. However, he was promptly shooed to the tiny table in the corner of the nook they occupied.

Perching upon a rickety stool, he finally cast the heavy winter garments off. The damp fabric of the tunic clung to his spine, but he barely noticed, enthralled by the sight of Gawain’s hands as the man dipped the apples into a bowl of water and then dropped them into one of the cauldrons. They were very lovely hands — warm skin with a scatter of short gilded hairs, scarred knuckles, but slender, clever fingers. They were bare right now, silver rings piled to the side, gleaming dimly in the flickering light of the hearth.

“Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready for the feast?” Gawain asked, breaking him out of his reverie, and Lancelot flushed with guilt before he saw that the man was not looking his way.

Taking one last longing glance, he leaned back against the wall and tried to remember how to be an actual person and not merely a lovesick fool.

“It’s only tomorrow,” he murmured, letting his eyelids droop a bit. The fumes from the cauldron and the warmth momentarily lulled him into a drowsy state that he knew would soon pass, but right now was muddling his mind.

“With how long it takes you to dress, might be wise to start now,” Gawain remarked with faux innocence, the knife tapping rapidly against the board without a falter.

Lancelot huffed, tugging his gloves off and putting them carefully on his lap. “Excuse me for wanting to be neat.”

“You say it as if I run around clad only in wolf skins, shaking my unkempt mane at the enemies,” scoffed Gawain. When Lancelot tactfully did not reply, he paused, narrowing his eyes, and pointed the knife at him. “Oh, come on. I am not that bad.”

Lancelot arched his brows, pointedly looking at the tip of the blade. “I didn’t say you’re bad.”

“Sure sounded like that,” the knight noted, flipping the knife with a flourish and turning back around.

Rolling his eyes, Lancelot leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “How could it sound like anything when I was silent.”

Gawain shrugged, popping one of the apple pieces into his mouth. Actually, half of them were already gone — that surely explained why he still needed to cut more. “It was your disapproving silence.”

“It wasn’t,” Lancelot countered quietly, suddenly nervous. “Truly, I wasn’t. You’re not bad. Just wild.”

“That I admit. Part of my charms,” Gawain nodded thoughtfully, tossing his head back to get the stray auburn strands out of his eyes.

_ It certainly is _ , thought Lancelot, but wisely did not say a word, opting instead to watch the knight as he dipped the knife into the water basin and then took it out again in a fan of glimmering droplets. Rocking forth to stand on his tiptoes, he reached for the fragrant sack hanging off the hook hammered into the wall, and dropped it on the counter.

Lancelot’s breath caught in his throat as he watched the ripe, perfect oranges roll and scatter, their bright skin standing out starkly against the dark wood. The mouth-watering smell wafted off them, and when he inhaled it greedily, his vision blacked out for a moment.

Without realising what he was doing, Lancelot swayed forward, only coming to his senses when the stool tipped dangerously. Grabbing at the edge of it for support, he licked his lips and tried to speak. “Where did you—”

Shooting him a sideways glance, Gawain smirked like the cat that got the cream. “Sheltering a sorcerer in the keep has its perks.”

Of course. For Merlin, that was probably a child’s play. Briefly, Lancelot wondered whether he spun them out of thin air or plucked them from some far-away garden. He was startled out of his daydreaming when Gawain threw him one bright fruit. Catching it with one hand, Lancelot brought it up to his nose, taking a greedy inhale, and sank his teeth into it to break the peel.

“Would you look at that—not so neat now,” Gawain said in an even tone, without glancing up from the oranges he was slicing, and Lancelot made an outraged little noise, before wiping hastily at his chin with the back of his hand. “Might need to wash off after this.”

“The baths are full of people right now—I’d rather get up early tomorrow,” Lancelot frowned, rubbing at the back of his neck. Two years after, he still could not get used to being seen naked by a good dozen strangers — well, not strangers, but not all of them were friends, either. His eyes flitted around the deserted kitchen, their little corner the only place lit up by the fire. “Where is everyone, by the way?”

For a short while, Gawain did not reply, busy pouring the fruits into the second cauldron. That one was full of dark, rich wine, which probably meant it was for Nimue, who had recently developed an obsession with trying out all kinds of mulled wine. Once that was done, the knight wiped his hand clean and joined him at the table, pulling out another rough-hewn stool to sit on.

“I politely requested the cooks to let me peruse the kitchens alone for the night,” he said, and Lancelot froze with a half-peeled orange in his hand, a horrible suspicion creeping into his mind.

“Alone? Why?..”

“That right there is the famous Orkney cider,” Gawain replied, nodding at the bubbling cauldron in the middle, and got up to stir it. “Will knock you out if the hosts themselves won’t,” he sang-song, something wistful in his tone as he stared into the fire, orange gleams shifting on his face. “It’s a family recipe. A very closely guarded one.”

Oh God, he  _ was  _ intruding, Lancelot realised and closed his eyes briefly, struggling with the urge to open the window and flung himself out. Unfortunately, the kitchens were located on the ground floor; so instead, he jerked up to stand, barely snatching his gloves in time before they fell to the ground. “I will go then.”

“Stay.”

Slowly, he lowered himself back down, eyes not leaving the knight’s back.

“Stay,” Gawain repeated, softer this time, and then cleared his throat. “I don’t mind.”

Turning around, he gave Lancelot another wry grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes, brimming over with mischievous glee. “Besides, brewing the cider itself takes more than a month, so you’re a bit late to catch me in the act — the rest, so be it, you can see.”

As Lancelot searched his face, he could not find any trace of deception. Either he was genuine, or for some reason, made an extra effort to appear so. Regardless, it meant he had an excuse to stay, and so he settled back.

“What if I steal some of it?” Perhaps he should take an oath of silence, Lancelot thought as he stuffed his mouth with another piece of orange to avoid any further brilliant remarks from spilling.

Dropping back on the stool, Gawain shot him a lopsided grin. “Good luck finding where I hid it.”

“I can follow the scent,” Lancelot challenged, because he was a very thorough young man, even when it came to digging his own grave. Especially then, it seemed.

“True,” Gawain admitted with a nod, and shifted, leaning against the wall to stretch his legs out. “But if you try to brew it, I will know.”

“How?” he wondered, curious despite the self-flagellation currently ongoing in his head. He could multitask.

“By people shouting something is on fire.”

“It happened once,” Lancelot bristled with an offended huff.

“Three times,” the knight countered immediately, reaching out to pick his rings and slide them back on. “Four, if we count that patrol when you almost burnt down the sacred druid grove.”

Giving him a betrayed look — they had agreed not to bring that accident up — Lancelot frowned. “I was not even cooking the other three. I just stood there.”

The silence stretched, as Gawain waited for him to realise that this confession only worsened the situation, and finally, he yielded and waved his hand in the air with a sigh of defeat. “Alright, alright. I wasn’t really going to steal it, anyway.”

“I know,” Gawain conceded with only a faint trace of a smile left on his lips, but before Lancelot could understand what prompted the shift in the mood, he seemed to bounce back into his usual busy self. “I think the first batch is ready. Want to try?”

“Sure,” Lancelot nodded, before remembering that he did not drink alcohol. Especially not around Gawain. On the other hand, refusing something so special was a sure way to make a grave offence. Torn in between, he slowly worked himself up, as he always did, until his heart was in his throat.

Then the culprit returned, extending a steaming tankard to him. Under his calm, warm gaze, Lancelot folded like a house of cards. Everything went just as he feared — their fingers brushed, his pulse quickened, and, as a cherry on top, he blushed. Being the kind man he was, Gawain did not comment, just tipped the tankard at him and knocked it back.

Eyes firmly on the line of his throat, Lancelot sniffed the liquid cautiously. Sweet and tart, it mostly smelled of apples and sugar, and when he took a careful sip, it stung his tongue a bit, but not too much. How bad could it be, right? Squeezing his eyes shut, he gathered his courage and knocked it back as well.

Oh, God. It burned. It burned through his entire chest. He choked, drawing back, and gasped for air.

“So? What do you think?”

Lancelot coughed and brought his hand up to dab delicately at the corner of his mouth with the sleeve.

“It’s… strong,” he said at last.

“I know, right?” grinned Gawain, a bit helpless but also proud, and if anyone would ask Lancelot, it was utterly charming. No one did, so he kept those thoughts to himself, watching how the knight’s face turned properly sheepish as he scratched at the back of his head. “I didn’t actually plan for it to be so strong — do you think it is still alright to bring it tonight?..”

Pausing in swirling the remains of cider in his tankard, Lancelot eyed the pot with appropriate wariness. Tonight they were supposed to have a small gathering just for the close circle, a warm-up before tomorrow’s grand feast. “I don’t think so,” he admitted, as gently as possible.

“Because of Squirrel?”

“Yeah.”

Both men paused and shuddered simultaneously, as the terrible memories flooded their minds, flashbacks of the last time the cheeky boy had gotten his hands on a flask someone had accidentally left behind on the table in the dining hall. Lancelot had learned three new words and two expressions that day, before Gawain had managed to take his ward down from the deer antlers mounted on the wall.

In the ensuing silence, Arthur, who’d been hosting the ambassadors of the northern kingdoms, nearly burst a vessel, but, to everyone’s relief, they’d actually seemed impressed. However, since that day, even mentions of alcohol within a five-feet radius of Squirrel had been forbidden on pain of death. Bringing a pot full of it was out of the question.

With a sigh, Gawain got up and wandered back to the wine cauldron to stir it a bit more. Apparently content with the state of the drink, he dipped a teaspoon into one of the small wooden boxes lined up on the countertop, and squinted, considering something. He even stuck his tongue out a bit, Lancelot noted, and spread in a smile before catching himself, and looking back down on the tankard. Bracing himself, he took a sip, and was pleasantly surprised by how much smoother that one went.

“Do you think Arthur would help us out?” Gawain wondered, clearly grasping at straws and knowing it. 

Lancelot winced apologetically and took another sip. “He swore off wine this week after trying to outdrink Gwen and ending up in an infirmary for a day.”

“But it’s way too much for us,” the knight noted, “and tomorrow it won’t be the same,” he added with a frown, narrowing his eyes at the cauldron as if trying to intimidate it into not spoiling.

Staring at the pretty flames, Lancelot gave a mournful nod. It was a shame, truly—the drink did wonders to warm him up and loosen some of the tension in his shoulders.

For a short, but no less awful moment, Gawain looked genuinely heartbroken, brows creasing dramatically and lips twisting, but then his face smoothed out, the familiar excitement entering the stage again. It was like the sun breaking through the clouds, Lancelot thought in a daze, and then he swallowed thickly and carefully put the tankard on the table.

“We can give it to our enemies!”

Gawain said it with such a dazzling smile that Lancelot immediately agreed that it seemed like a splendid idea. In a second, his mind caught up on the words, and he abruptly stopped nodding.

“Enemies?”

It was the knight’s turn to nod with such fervour, Lancelot was briefly worried he was going to end up losing his head, as he explained, voice brimming over with cheerful enthusiasm: “Yeah, the Church?” As if Lancelot could forget that part. “They’re gonna get drunk, and then we can slit their throats!”

There was something wrong with that phrase, but Lancelot couldn’t quite put his finger on it, so he nodded again.

Encouraged by, Gawain erupted into a flurry of activity. He was practically buzzing with energy, topping their tankards again, procuring a jug for some more, and then fishing out the wineskins, the ladle splashing cheerfully as the liquid weapon got poured inside. 

While Lancelot would have been perfectly content to watch him, sipping some more of the cider and suffocating on the warmth that grew in his chest, something still nagged at his mind. With a tankard clutched in his other hand, he pressed a finger against his lips, thinking.

“But,” he said, finally uncovering the root of his worry, “won’t they get suspicious?”

“Who?” asked Gawain, distracted by pouring the last dredges of the cider into the fifth wineskin, the first four laid out in a neat row a bit to the side.

“The Church.”

The knight paused, thick aromatic droplets sliding off the ladle and falling on the countertop, and then shook himself out of the daze.

“Nah,” he scoffed with a derisive sneer. ”They’re bloody idiots. Besides, we can go in disguise.”

Suddenly uneasy, Lancelot fidgeted, swallowed thickly and put his nearly empty tankard down again.

“What kind of disguise?” he asked, aiming for nonchalance, but missing by a mile. Last time, they’d had to pretend to be ladies, and even five weeks later, he couldn’t help but close his eyes briefly as the wave of humiliation swept over.

It was not that he couldn’t handle wearing a dress — hardly a matter after the robes. It’s just that Gawain had looked absolutely  _ stunning  _ in that green gown, and those were not the thoughts Lancelot had been prepared to have. He’d been trained to kill people with his bare hands and burn down entire villages, not pine after his best friend, whimpering at the memory of what his hips looked like wrapped in emerald silk, as he stroke himself at night.

Gods. That was a lot of feelings at once. Perhaps he shan’t drink anymore — or should it be more? Gods, no idea. No idea, whatsoever. He would have asked Gawain, but at the moment the man was busy knocking back his own tankard, his throat bobbing rhythmically in a way that...

Eyeing the tankard, Lancelot firmly told himself it was the last one. Belatedly, he realised Gawain was talking again and made a heroic effort to tune back in.

“... or we can pretend to be travelling minstrels — oh, it’s going to be ballad-worthy, two roguish bards sneaking into an enemy camp...” the knight rambled, his speech growing more and more heated.

When he got like this, the plans he suggested ceased being daring and went straight for outlandish. If past missions were any indication, he needed to be interrupted right now.

“I do play the lute,” Lancelot said abruptly, and let out a barely audible sigh of relief when Gawain paused, hand hovering over the handle of the jug.

“You do?” he clarified with an unsure frown.

“Yes.”

“But I’ve never heard you play.”

“I practice in the woods,” Lancelot replied, feeling as if every phrase was pulling him closer to his doom, but unable to stop the current dragging him along. His vivid imagination supplied that the current smelled suspiciously familiar, apples, leather and musk.

Gawain looked as if he wanted to ask five things at once as he shrugged into a short sheepskin coat. While he was choosing, Lancelot fetched his own cloak, shook it once to spread the fabric out, grabbed the remaining wineskins, and stepped toward the door.

“Is that where you were sneaking off for the last month?”

He was not aware the knight had noticed. It was a disturbing piece of information, and he gave a curt nod, praying Gawain would not ask about the rumours that had seemed to spread around the same time...

“Everyone thought you were courting someone.”

… yes. Those rumours.

“Wait, but three girls confirmed, and one lad. We were just trying to figure out who was lying — was it one of them at all? Lance? Lance, wait...”

Lancelot fled.


	2. Into The Dragon Lair

Gawain only caught up with him at the bottom of the stairs, arms piled with wineskins, on top of which, for some reason, laid a strand of gingerbread cookies strung together on a thick red thread.

“So, is it Ysabel?” the knight’s grin brought out the dimples on his cheeks, as he fumbled around trying to push the soft flyaway strands of hair out of his eyes without dropping anything. His hair had grown too long, but he adamantly refused to shorten it, intent on growing it out long enough to braid it. Apparently, he was inspired by the raider’s tradition of only cutting one’s hair when suffering a defeat.

Tearing his eyes away, Lancelot scoffed and shook his head. “No.”

“Probably smart,” nodded Gawain, who, as everyone in the keep knew, had an on-and-off affair with the woman in question that involved an alarming body count. “Elaine?”

His frown deepened. “No.” 

Though she probably would have agreed. If he was interested, that is. He wasn’t, and it left him vaguely guilty as he remembered the way she threw him longing glances across the hall whenever dancing started. He always sat it out, hiding in that one corner that gave him the best unobstructed view of Gawain as the knight twirled and skipped around, like a flame dancing over the wick, so enticing, dangerous and—

—and Gawain was asking him something. Gods, he really had to pull himself together.

“Jolene?” the man repeated, lips twitching in a smile as Lancelot looked at him helplessly.

“No—wait, who is Jolene? We have a Jolene?”

“No, I just wanted to see if you were listening.”

Usually, when Lancelot glared at people with narrowed eyes as he did now, they grew at least a bit uneasy, but Gawain just glanced back briefly, a wry smirk curling the corner of his lips up, and then averted his eyes. 

His heart heavy, Lancelot did the same and worried his lip with his teeth, feeling as if he was missing something. Had he forgotten to feed Goliath? He didn’t think so. He never forgot, but today was a strange day. 

It was challenging to focus next to Gawain, who was still looking straight ahead as they walked down the hallway, a small smile resting on his lips. 

“Yvaine?” he asked after a short pause, sounding bored.

Having recognised it as one of his patiently cultivated bored voices, Lancelot paused rummaging through his own mind and eyed the knight carefully. His face was unreadable, a smooth stone mask that Lancelot ached to run his fingers over, looking for a ledge to pry it open.

It was wrong. This mask was all wrong.

“Which Yvaine?” he asked, suddenly a bit angry with Gawain for hiding from him like this. 

Gawain’s eyebrows rose when he shot him a sideways glance. “Does it matter?”

“No,” Lancelot forced out, voice buried under the weight of his anxious thoughts as he tried to figure out why Gawain was so inquisitive. 

They were friends, after all — there was no reason for him not to trust Lancelot. Or was there? Was he still uncertain of his intentions, deep inside? Did he suspect Lancelot wanted to kill someone? He did, but it was unavoidable when you were holed up in a keep with the same people for the entire winter, that didn’t mean he was going to go through with it, not even with Mark, and the pompous git really deserved it, and...

All of these thoughts raced through his head in a span of approximately three heartbeats, leaving Lancelot a bit dizzy.

In the meantime, Gawain frowned, the lines of his face standing out starkly in the moonlight filtering through the windows of the dimly lit corridor. “Then why did you ask?”

“Why did you?” countered Lancelot, preferring to have the battle now and be done with it.

Gawain stopped, falling silent for a moment as he leaned against the wall, depositing his precious cargo on the ledge of the alcove. The pale light bathed one side of his face as he pondered his reply; his frown deepened, but then it smoothed as he shook his head with a sigh.

“Sorry,” he said softly, and just like that, Lancelot forgot why he was supposed to be cross with the knight, breath catching in his throat as he stared, entranced, into the earnest jade eyes. “Got carried away a bit there. I didn’t mean to pry—I just wanted to know who to interrogate about their intentions. You will tell me if you fancy someone, right? I promise I’ll be nice when I threaten them.” 

Letting out a relieved breath, Lancelot tried to smile. “Of course.”

Gawain beamed. _Please, let me die_ , Lancelot thought, but then he remembered he had not fought the Trinity Guards to die like this. It was a memory he revisited more than was probably healthy, but he drew strength from it, especially when faced with Gawain. After all, it reminded Lancelot that he was a warrior. A little heartbreak was nothing. 

A warm hand clasped his shoulder, and his heart leapt in his throat.

“To honesty between friends?” Gawain winked at him, raising a wineskin, and Lancelot smiled back, his stomach fluttering in a decidedly un-warrior-like way.

“To honesty between friends,” he repeated, and uncorked his own, tipping it into his mouth to wash the sour aftertaste left by the words. 

The burning drink ran down his throat, licking at it like flames, and Lancelot, who had not expected it would be so different from taking sips of it, nearly choked. Pulling the wineskin away from his lips, he coughed, then looked up to see the knight watching him with a slightly pained expression. It must have been because he looked so sloppy, cider running down his chin, and Lancelot flushed a bit and frowned.

“What?” he rasped out, wiping it off with his sleeve.

“Nothing,” Gawain replied in a strange voice, and then his expression cleared and his lips curved in the familiar smirk. “It’s just, you know, some people think that Gwen and Arthur…”

“Don’t,” Lancelot warned, gesturing at him with a wineskin threateningly. Then, since it was already in his hand, he took another swig, shuddering at the fire spreading through his veins. “We are not like this.”

“I know,” the knight said serenely, bending over to pick up the rest of their liquid arsenal, “with our bed chambers so close, I know more about Arthur’s love life than I ever wanted to. Just last night...”

This time, Lancelot did chuck a wineskin — corked, he was not an animal — at him, which Gawain, being the show-off that he was, caught with one hand without even looking. Laughing, he threw it back, nearly hitting Lancelot in the shoulder. 

He dodged, of course. He was a warrior, even if the light was shattering a bit more than usual, and Gawain’s scent filled his lungs, mingling with the aroma of apple cider in a wonderfully, terribly heady combination. 

At least Gawain had dropped the topic, seemingly content with whistling some catchy tune instead as he skipped ahead. Lancelot thought he might have recognised the tune as something he’d heard from the raiders. He’d had the misfortune to ask Gwen about the lyrics to that one, and was not sure he would ever recover from that mental image, because it was _utter filth_. 

Despite his best attempts to forget, the song haunted him. It chased him out of the halls and drove him away from the training grounds. Not because any of the British castle dwellers would actively request it from the raider’s scald; it was rather that no one could escape hearing it once the northerners got into singing. 

But those sea shanties, while they made him close his eyes, petrified with shame, were also insanely catchy. He might have hummed along for a moment before realising what he was doing. 

Remembering the activities described in that particular verse, Lancelot flushed to the roots of his hair, but as he stole a glance at Gawain, the man seemed blissfully oblivious. Letting out a relieved breath, he adjusted his slipping grip on the wineskins and hurried after the knight as he strode determinedly down the hallway — to the ladies’ wing. 

“Uh, Gawain?.. It’s the ladies’ wing.”

“I know.”

Of course, he did. How foolish of him.

“I can hear you pouting,” Gawain informed him, turning the corner so sharply that Lancelot stumbled and nearly ran into a mistletoe arc, which designated the border of the fair sex’s domain.

“I am not pouting, I am seething,” corrected Lancelot, and then winced. He was always prone to saying strange things around Gawain, but now, with the cider loosening his tongue, it was bordering on dangerous how easily he surrendered his thoughts. Dangerous, because right now his body was rioting, eyes refusing to shift from where they rested on the firm curve of Gawain’s broad shoulders.

“If you say so, though it’s really too cute to be called that. Anyway, why are you upset?”

Lancelot, who was too busy wrangling his head free out of a mistletoe that fell from the ceiling beam, completely missed the first part and only tuned back in when he recognised he was being asked something. “Sorry, what?”

“I said, why are you upset? Do I offend your delicate sensibilities too much by strolling into the women’s wing at night, drunk and up to no good?”

Banishing the thoughts of how _exactly_ he wanted Gawain to offend his delicate sensibilities, Lancelot sighed, adjusting the heap of wineskins which just kept slipping down to the floor. Not taking a sack was an unforgivable oversight. “When you put it like this, yes, it does sound a bit worrying. But—I am just respectful of their privacy.”

Gawain stopped dead in his tracks.

“That is very sweet of you,” he declared, clasping a hand on his shoulder. “But I think you are just shy. Girls don’t bite, Lancelot.”

“Some do,” he muttered, remembering his last spar with Kaze, and only when Gawain shot him a surprised look he flushed, realising the words must have been severely misinterpreted. Judging by the way the knight looked at him with respect, it certainly was the case.

“Well, yes, but it is all about consent. Anyway, you need to loosen up a bit. I can give you a lesson.”

Lancelot nearly tripped over his own feet. Was he reading too much into it? Must have. It was all cider’s fault — but before he could try his luck, Gawain took in his expression, and coughed.

“Nevermind,” he muttered, stopping before the door, behind which some sabbat seemed to take place judging by giggles and shrieks — and thin tendrils of pink-coloured smoke streaming from under the door. “Gods, what’s with all this mistletoe? I think it doubled from last night.”

Wilting at the implication, Lancelot shrugged half-heartedly, as he looked up as well, inspecting the garland.

The female dwellers of the castle seemed to develop some kind of manic obsession with the plant. Even Kaze was bullied into decorating and did not seem particularly upset about it. Lancelot was not sure what was special about the plant — he had a vague idea it was connected to courting, but he was hazy on the details. All he knew is to avoid those like the plague when Elaine was around.

“Alright, Hidden, help us out here, I’ll owe you one,” Gawain said as he raised his fist and knocked on the door.

Nothing happened. They waited a moment longer, but the giggling and the chatter continued without a pause.

“Try again?” Lancelot suggested hesitantly.

Gawain shot him a dirty look and knocked again. Something shattered, and the girls squealed, but then laughed again, louder this time. When still no reply came, the knight’s face darkened.

“Hey!” he shouted, pounding his fist on the door. “Open up! The knight patrol!”

The voices died down like a candle flame snuffed out by a draft. Then, the quiet footsteps approached the door.

“Who is this?” a thin voice requested.

“Uther Pendragon,” the knight said grimly.

“Go away,” the woman replied without pause. Lancelot’s eyebrows rose—people rarely remembered they can say no to Gawain. Even the man himself seemed to forget, judging by the way his brows pulled together.

“What do you mean, go away? Why?” 

“Shoo, Gawain. Go back to where you, cowardly manchildren, come from.”

“Open the door, Lynette,” Gawain gritted out, leaning against the wall, “or I will break it down. And you really don’t want me breaking into places.”

When Lancelot shot him an affronted look, he winced and shook his head slightly, waving his hand to indicate it was an empty threat. Lynette must have known it, too, because the door stayed close—but before Lancelot could suggest they retreat, the fast, energetic footsteps sounded, then someone muttered “Let me see that arrogant mug”, and the door flung open.

“Hi, Morgana,” Gawain grinned, tilting his head. “Sorry for the threats. You look dashing.”

The woman raised one perfect eyebrow. “Why, thank you. Do you bring something but empty words?”

“Yes! Show him, Morgana!” someone called out. Lancelot suspected it might have been Nimue, and, judging by the pinched look on the knight’s face, he thought the same.

“I come bearing gifts, actually,” Gawain cajoled, raising one of the wineskins, a strand of cookies wrapped around it. “Mulled wine and gingerbread, anyone?”

That prompted a chorus of agreement from behind Lynette and Morgana’s backs. Exchanging quick glances, the women shrugged and reached out to accept the offering. 

“See, you catch more flies with honey, Gawain!” Pym hollered from somewhere inside the room.

The knight scoffed, a lazy grin playing on his lips. “I think I caught all of the ones in this room, already.”

Lancelot’s smile froze on his face. The girls groaned, and while most of them winced or rolled their eyes, at least two thirds also blushed and grinned in a condemning way. 

Caught up in calculations of where he could acquire enough knives to accommodate the sudden increase in his kill list, Lancelot did not have time to react before he was dragged inside, the door shutting behind him with a loud, damning thud.

Kaze looked up at them from the cauldron full of bubbling pink liquid, her hair adorned with flowers woven into intricate braids. From the back of the room, Pym, draped over the sofa, saluted at them with a goblet, and Nimue, who was lounging there as well, legs curled underneath her, gave them a grin and a wave. Judging by their flushed cheeks and shining eyes, the mulled wine degustation process was a success even before Gawain’s arrival.

No longer shielded from the women’s terrifyingly friendly eyes, Lancelot stiffened and took a wary look around. Everything was full of pink smoke, twirling lazily in the air, and the entire room smelled very pleasant, sweet and flowery — it was less intimidating than it sounded from the outside, right until he saw the familiar golden hair in the corner.

“Lancelot,” Elaine breathed out with reverence, her brilliant blue eyes widening.

“Elaine,” he nodded stiffly, skirting the wall towards a lone chair standing forgotten in the corner.

Barely a moment after he sat down, he was immediately surrounded by half a dozen ladies. He let their chatter wash over him, hoping that if he nodded randomly and hummed, it would hit the target at least half of the time, and the other half could always be chalked up to his eccentricities. There was already a rumour circulating that he was raised in a lake — a simple translation misunderstanding, but it seemed to take root.

Someone pushed a glazed gingerbread cookie in his hands, and he took a small bite, but immediately winced and put it down gingerly on the small table. It was so sweet that his teeth hurt — luckily, he spotted a half-full goblet buried under heaps of scarves. Glancing around again, Lancelot reached to pick it up, took a careful sip, and coughed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Who the hell was drinking whiskey out of the goblet—

“So, I just wanted to ask if we can borrow some of your makeup again for Lance...” Gawain said in the meantime, all easy grace as he plucked a goblet out of someone’s hand and took a sip, before giving them a radiant smile. “We are off to convert paladins through the power of love, violence and Orkney’s family cider.”

“One of these things is not like the others,” Kaze murmured, stirring the pearly potion with a long wooden ladle.

The knight sighed, gesturing with the goblet. “Well, yes, but by love I mean…”

“I know what you mean by love. I meant cider, but actually, you’re right, that brew _is_ pure violence,” the woman scoffed, scrunching her nose, as she reached out for her own goblet, full to the brim with shimmering white wine.

“Well, what are you brewing there, then?” Gawain asked, wandering closer to peek into the cauldron over her shoulder. Taking a deep breath in, Kaze opened her mouth, but then closed it again and slowly turned her head to give him an unimpressed look, which he met with defiantly raised brows.

“It’s a love potion! You’re supposed to see the face of a person you are destined to be in love with,” Ragnelle informed them from her corner, where she was stringing beads on a red thread, and then she smirked in a way that made Lancelot want to bolt for the door. “Actually, you should give it a try.”

The girls whistled, as Gawain looked around, the roguish smile slowly sliding off his face, replaced by the look of pure horror the likes of which Lancelot had never seen but was sure his own face mirrored.

“Aw,” Morgana pouted, narrowing her dark eyes, “the big bad knight is afraid of love, is that it?”

For a moment, Gawain’s smile was a sorry sight, but then he tossed his head back with the familiar air of reckless nonchalance and smirked.

“Bring it on.”

The excitement surged up so strong, Lancelot was sure he could taste it in the air — a sweet threat, hidden malice wrapped in sugar. His stomach churned as he watched Kaze pour the goblet full of the rosy potion. 

Tipping it at the audience, Gawain knocked it back and winced, earning himself a slap on the forearm, but then the expectant silence fell over the room. 

“So? Who is it?”

Gawain’s eyes found his. 

“It’s—” the silence seemed to stretch forever—“Priamus”.

Lancelot blinked, raising a hand to his chest to rub absently at the spot right under his collarbone.

The silence returned, confused and more than a little bit dismayed. Someone swore and kicked the table — Lancelot made a mental note of their face, even though he couldn’t put a name to it.

“Who the hell is Priamus?” someone else asked, at last.

“You don’t know him,” Gawain said fast, putting the goblet down. “He is my friend from Egypt. I mean, not a friend. I mean, I am in love with him. Obviously.”

“Wait, it’s the one you convinced to switch sides by snogging him mid-battle?” Pym frowned, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully, as she swirled the last dredges of wine in her goblet.

“It was a bit more than that,” the knight grinned, a bit awkwardly, and winced, when the women booed. “Not like that — I didn’t mean it like that, even though, for the record, that also happened. But yes. That’s the one.”

For the second time in so many minutes, Lancelot felt very betrayed. He thought they had something special. 

Then, he could no longer wallow in misery, because someone was urging him to stand, and he did so without thinking, while he really should have been thinking, because next thing he knew, he was standing next to the cauldron as well, and there was a goblet in his hand, and in that goblet was his death.

“It’s me,” he heard Elaine whisper.

“Hidden, don’t be bitches, come on,” he heard Pym utter.

Gawain kept silent.

As they stared at each other, Lancelot’s fingers tightened on the goblet until he felt the thin steel give way. Or maybe it was wishful thinking. He had a lot of it going today, as the last three minutes had shown. 

Kaze’s eyes flitted between them, and she frowned. “Are we interrupting something?”

With a start, Lancelot looked at her, and then at the other women, who were all watching him with the rapt attention of the pack of wolves staring down a wounded deer. The raider smiled at him, probably aiming for encouragement, but it turned out so toothy, Lancelot shuddered.

“No,” he forced out and tossed the potion down before anyone could ask anything else. 

It tasted like a cool, pink liquid, and a bit of salt, and that was it. He half-expected it to taste like Gawain, but then he realised he did not know what Gawain tasted like, so he wouldn’t have been able to tell. Maybe it was actually that. It was not like he would ever know now, with this Priamus fellow ruining his entire life without even being there. The audacity of it, he thought, and this time the goblet really did creak.

“Lancelot, you’re killing us,” Nimue muttered, shifting to put her feet to the floor, toes sinking into the thick rug. “Who is it?” 

Think, Lancelot told himself, the haze in his head turning into some spinning nightmare under the unblinking green stare. Think, who do you know, who is not Gawain. Anyone would do, just some stupid name, anyone at all—

“No one,” he muttered, carefully putting the goblet down and averting his eyes. “I don’t see anyone.”

He was bad at lying under pressure, alright. It took him years to learn a single lie.

The girls fell silent, frowning, and then Pym narrowed her eyes. “It’s Gwen, isn’t it.”

Lancelot glanced at her, then back at Gawain, and chose the lesser of two evils. 

“Don’t tell Arthur,” he begged, “he will kill me.”

The girls cooed, which he felt was a completely inappropriate reaction to the statement, but then again, Arthur appeared about as bloodthirsty as a very friendly pup, so perhaps they thought it was an exaggeration. They had just never seen the man fly into a rage over someone butchering his favourite song and then proceed by breaking a lute over their head.

Someone expressed tentative hope that they could figure it out, and Lancelot smiled weakly and patted their hand, pretending to be inconsolable, which at the moment required very little acting. 

“Arthur is just so jealous,” he sighed, and took a gulp of the whiskey to wash down the lie, “last time I tried to cross the threshold of their room, he yelled at me for the better part of an hour.”

That last bit was not, technically, a lie. The full truth being that he was trying to _leave_ their room, and Arthur kept insisting that no one should sleep alone after a bad nightmare. Somehow, that had grown into a permanent arrangement to the extent that Lancelot barely spent a night in his own room and now had a designated pillow.

Gods, Arthur might actually kill him if he hears what kind of nonsense Lancelot was saying about him.

Taking another hearty swallow of the whiskey, he looked grimly around. Gawain was studiously avoiding his eyes, but Lancelot himself was not particularly keen on looking, choosing to focus instead on Elaine’s crestfallen face, just for the sake of self-flagellation. Lynette, who kept the girl in a tender embrace, was glaring daggers at him.

When he lifted the goblet again, Kaze wrangled it out of his hand, but before he could protest that he was as judge as a sober, or how it went, the door creaked open, revealing Arthur’s smiling face.

“Evening, darlings,” he chirped, dancing inside, brandishing a lute in one hand, as he nodded at Lance, who was trying to sink through the ground, “brought the music as you asked — oh, Gawain! I was just looking for you.”

“What is it?” the knight grumbled, as he shrugged into his coat again and picked up the remaining wineskins.

“There is a letter for you—Priamus invites you to his wedding, lucky bastard, finally she agreed,” he informed the knight, bending over to pick a honey cake and thus dodging his murderous glare completely. “Also, Lancelot, Gwen wanted you to know that it’s alright if you sleep in our bed again, seriously, I have no idea why you thought something is—What’s wrong? Why is everyone so silent?”

Lancelot, who was halfway to the door, froze, met Gawain’s eyes, and slowly turned around.

If he had thought they had looked like wolves before, then now they resembled dragons. An entire lair of very angry, _furious_ dragons, their narrowed eyes gleaming with murder.

Pym recovered first.

“Get out, liars!” she shouted, throwing a goblet at him. Lancelot dodged because he was a warrior — tipsy, heart-broken and treacherous, but still a warrior.

“Gawain, Gawain,” Kaze shook her head with a knowing smirk, crossing her arms and leaning back against the desk.

“Heartbreakers!” Lynette added, hugging Elaine, who had, unbelievably, perked up at the news, looking up at him with hope lighting up her tear-stricken face. His heart stirred, but then he finally realised that _Gawain had lied_ , and forgot all about the little insistent damsel.

“Ladies! To arms!” Morgana hollered, voice brimming over with delight as she tugged off her shoe.

Hailed by heels, goblets and one apple core, Lancelot and Gawain fled.

—-

They might have lost their dignity, their friends, their moral integrity, but at least they still had each other, Lancelot thought, as they trailed down the stairs, two forlorn and defeated figures against the world.

Should have pilfered that makeup — good thing at least most of the cider was safe, Gawain thought, as he kicked the loose piece of stone that lay on the floor. The fucking castle was falling apart, at this rate the Paladins only had to wait a couple more months and it would crumble into rubble all on itself.

Right. Paladins. Red Paladins. Red Paladins besieging their castle.

“So,” he cleared his throat. “I think we can do with some violence right now, both of us. What do you say? Still up for murder?”

Without looking up, Lancelot pulled a wineskin out of his hands, took a swallow, and nodded resolutely. “Always.”

“That should probably not excite me as much as it does,” Gawain muttered, a wry smile curving his lips as he put the cork back in and shoved the wineskin back into the sack he had stolen from the ladies.

For a little while, they walked in silence. Bit by bit, it grew lighter, as they climbed down the stairs, crossed the hallway and entered the late December night. Tugging the cloak tighter around his shoulders, Lancelot shuddered. The winter air sobered him up for the whole five minutes it took for Gawain to smile at him again. 

As they strode across the yard to the stables, the knight startled whistling cheerfully at his side.

“Why did you lie?” Lancelot asked quietly.

“Why did you?” Gawain countered.

Feeling a strong deja-vu, he kept silent as he swung himself into the saddle. It was not the most graceful movement, what with the heavy cloak and the spirits still clouding his head, but he still had it in him not to use a stirrup.

 _Nice_ , Lancelot thought, nodding to himself, before looking back at Gawain, who was counting their weapon arsenal. Between the two of them, they seemed to have made a bit of a dent in it.

“Do we have enough?” Lancelot asked, worried that he would have to sneak back into the room to retrieve what they had surrendered to the enraged ladies. He would probably need to scale the tower. Gawain would laugh at him, again, because, as Percival aptly described it, he looked like a gigantic bat, courtesy of his black cloak flapping in the wind. However, that was not a problem, he did it nearly every week. But then, he would need to sneak in through the window, and he hated doing it — there were always iron bars, _always_. 

“Yes, five should be more than enough,” the knight determined with that absolute confidence that Lancelot had never found the heart to question. “Mordred once used half of that on a diplomatic envoy, and they were ob-li-te-ra-ted,” he said with a content smile, savouring the last word in a way that made the hairs stand up on Lancelot’s neck, as well as something else, that he would prefer to leave unnamed.

Bloodshed was in order—it should help his slipping sanity. Shuddering, he nudged his heels into the horse’s flanks, guiding him towards the gates. 

“Shall we?”

When Gawain bowed with a flourish, swaying dangerously in the saddle, he paused, tugging on the reins. Huffing out a white puff of air, Goliath scraped at the frozen ground with his hoof, tossing his head back.

“Should we be riding out on a mission in such a state?” Lancelot asked, doubt creeping into his voice.

Turning Gringolet around, Gawain rode closer to him until they were standing side by side. Straightening, the knight pinned him with clear, piercing eyes.

“We,” he said with conviction, “are the Wild Hunt, Lancelot. We bring terror to our enemies. We are legen— _hic_ —dary.”

“Are we? I think we are just two drunk men with swords.”

“And what’s the difference?” grinned Gawain, turning the horse again in the direction of the enemy’s camp. 

With a sigh, Lancelot spurred Goliath on and followed. There was something in Gawain that made people follow him, he thought, eyes firmly fixed on the knight’s backside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


	3. Promise of a Glad Tomorrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... I don't know what is going on in this chapter, but Dinadan is there. Just keep in mind that everyone (including the author) was very drunk.
> 
> For non-Cursed readers: there are small references to when Gawain was captured by Lancelot and tortured by paladins, who he at the moment served under the name of The Weeping Monk™.

The paladins’ camp was located, predictably, not far from the castle they were besieging, a scatter of brownish-red tents easily spotted from its walls behind the narrow grove of alder trees separating the sides. If one squinted — or was Lancelot — they would be able to see the crosses, looming over the canvases like scarecrows. From time to time, the besiegers came to the doors of the castle to preach, but under the hail of arrows and an occasional apple core quickly retreated back to the safety of the hastily consecrated ground.

Within a safe distance of said ground, Gawain and Lancelot dismounted and tethered their horses to the trees. Fussing over the white stallion as he always did, the knight tied the reins into a knot that he swore warded the wolves off — even though it was hardly needed. The predatory gleam in Gringolet’s dark eyes as he watched a single grey shadow skirt the clearing reminded Lancelot of the dragons depicted on the murals. Still, he also took precautions by leaving one of the daggers attached to Goliath’s saddle — he strongly suspected the horse was smart enough to use it, if needed. 

The rest of the way they made on foot, prowling between the bare trees in silence, eyes roaming the frozen thicket in case the paladins had sent out a patrol. However, it appeared the frightful weather—as well as the decision of the castle dwellers to avoid direct confrontation with their besiegers in favour of waiting them out—were enough to make paladins lower their guard. 

That was a huge mistake, Lancelot thought, as he crawled beside Gawain, aiming to take a closer peek at the camp from behind the cover of the fallen logs. In the past ten minutes, the cold sobered him up just a bit, and his mood soured significantly; if before he had a slight reservation, now he felt more than inspired to engage in violence.

Had they been back at the castle, Lancelot could have been pining in a corner, while a significantly less clothed Gawain twirled in a dance. Instead, he was freezing his ass off in what was sure to require an additional rescue mission. The only ones sober enough to undertake it would be Kaze and Arthur, who were both proficient at judgemental glares on their own, but together were truly a force to be reckoned with.

With a grim frown, Lancelot took a hearty swig from the wineskin on his belt. The cider at that moment was the only thing separating him from rash decisions. More of them, at least.

“Would you just look at them,” Gawain breathed out, his smile gleaming so feral and sharp, the wolves would be tucking their tails if they saw it. “Merry bastards, eh?” 

Obediently raising his eyes, Lancelot took in the merry commotion in the camp. It appeared not only the Fey were celebrating Yuletide. He was not sure what was wrong about it, but Gawain sounded like he had taken a personal offence at such blatant cultural appropriation as wanting to get drunk around the longest night of the year. 

Not feeling up to religious debates, and also sensing the tension in the air around his friend as if it was a tangible thing, Lancelot hummed in a vaguely disapproving manner, to which Gawain nodded, and then turned around to face him, leaning back against the log.

“So,” he said, all business-like. “I distract them by rustling suspiciously, you sneak in and pour the cider in their cauldron. We wait until it kicks in and then—”

“—we kill them all,” Lancelot finished quietly, a flutter awakening in his stomach at the blinding smile Gawain sent him.

“Exactly. You alright with it?”

He gave the nod, half-heartedly trying to focus on something other than the beguiling red of the knight’s mouth. Usually, he was less obvious about his staring, but right now, the will power had deserted him. Perhaps if he watched from under his eyelashes, Gawain would not notice.

“Why are you squinting?”

Groaning inwardly, Lancelot dropped his head, and exhaled heavily, breath clouding in the still night air. “I am not.”

Gawain scoffed. “Yes, you are. Is it your eyesight? You can ask Merlin about that, you know. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

“My eyesight,” he gritted out, refusing to look up, and the leather of his gloves creaked warningly when he tightened his fist, “is perfectly fine.”

“Then what is wrong?” Now the knight sounded genuinely worried, as he abandoned his spying and turned to face him.

It took Lancelot a moment to answer. “My choice of friends.”

Not entirely convinced, Gawain shrugged, but dropped the topic, peering over the log at the camp again. “Don’t know who you could be talking about.”

Silently, Lancelot reached out, caught the knight’s fingers, squeezed them tightly for a short moment, and withdrew his hand. Without turning his head, he could still see a faint smile curl Gawain’s lips before he pushed up and rolled his shoulders.

“Alright then,” he muttered, voice brimming over with barely restrained excitement. “Let’s do it.”

\---

In the end, despite their original plan, they went with a classic tactic of infiltrating by pretending to be caught. At least that was what they’d agreed to tell back at the castle. 

It was that or admitting that Gawain had slipped on a patch of ice and crashed into a cross, bringing it down. 

The clatter alone would have been enough to alert the entire camp — it made Lancelot jump a good five feet in the air — but the following string of curses in a thick Scottish accent sealed their fate. 

Either the paladins had started recruiting the bandits on a larger scale, or the former orphans finally learned how to use the bows. In any case, right now they were facing three dozens arrow tips. Surprisingly, at least half of them actually had the correct grip, Lancelot noted with approval, before remembering he was now on the other side.

Teeth bared in a blood-chilling grin, Gawain looked ready to challenge the paladins despite the odds, but at his warning glare, scoffed and lowered the thick branch he was brandishing. After that, they were rather politely asked to surrender the weapons.

It took a minute.

Maybe even a couple.

The cling of steel against frozen ground stopped being jarring and became almost monotonous by the time Lancelot was done. Naively assuming that a dozen blades was all he carried on his person at any given moment, paladins cleared their throats and requested he and Gawain to stand back to back with each other. 

There was a momentary surge of panic and a public outcry when Lancelot bared his teeth out of habit, but the notched arrows emboldened the paladins enough to continue. Promptly, they wrapped them in layers and layers of a thick rope. The amount was, in Lancelot’s opinion, excessive and inefficient. But Gawain seemed flattered, judging from the breathless remarks he let out.

Marching them over to the campfire and pushing them to the ground, the paladins settled around, their swords drawn as they studied their captives, who, in their turn, stared right back. A ginger friar — the crimson of his rob really clashed quite terribly with his hair, Lancelot noticed with vague distaste, which he made known by narrowing his gaze — was looking at him with eyes like saucers, his jaw hanging slightly agape.

“Have you really done  _ all of it?”  _ he breathed out, and for some reason, he looked hopeful. It made Lancelot flush a little bit and feel slightly bad about planning to kill all of them. Maybe he would first find out how old the lad was. It seemed an acceptable correction to his plans of massive slaughter.

“Hey,” someone called out from a bit further to the side, where a few other brothers crouched on the ground, inspecting the confiscated wineskins. From their growing smiles and appreciative nods, the inspection was deemed a success. “You can’t just assume someone is a murderer. He has feelings.”

“I don’t,” Lancelot hastened to correct them, before he realised they were not talking about any particular kind of feelings and relapsed into silence.

“Sure do. You cried at least five times this week, and at least twice over a horse,” Gawain chirped, like the blabber-mouth he was. It was also pretty bold of him to bring that up, given how he was regularly seen reading to Gringolet. Children’s stories, because as smart as the horse was, it was still a horse.

The paladins paused their shuffling and gurgling; the ginger’s eyes somehow grew even wider, to the extent that was frankly alarming, at least in Lancelot’s opinion. But he found many things alarming, so that was hardly a reliable opinion.

“I can admire your dedication to the character,” the paladin hummed. “A bit weird, I must admit—but we all thought it was odd, right, guys?”

_ They did? _ Lancelot thought wildly, and then his heart sank as he saw the other men nod, accompanied by various sounds of agreement. Once again, he felt utterly out of his depth when it came to how others perceived him. And seriously, what was wrong with crying about a horse? It was Goliath, not some — some  _ unknown _ horse. He would not cry over a random horse, he was not mad.

Not deigning any of this with a reply, but inwardly allocating some extra time tomorrow for self-flagellation — on top of the usual hour — Lancelot craned his neck and tried to reach his dagger, but failed. The ropes were so tight they barely allowed him to move his head. 

Amateurs. In his days, he had always made sure the prisoners, however securely bound, could at least look up, in case they wanted to pray. He was not heartless, after all. 

The cold was steadily seeping through the too-thin fabric of Lancelot’s trousers. He was not exactly planning on spending a lot of time on the ground, especially not with his fighting style. 

However, before he could grow distantly worried about the fate of his extremities, two of the paladins returned. In tow with them, they brought another man. He bore a dignified air of authority and a bushy beard Lancelot usually associated with people pushed into leadership positions against their will.

Stopping a couple of paces away from the Fey, the man fixed them with a heavy, calm stare. In the very depths of his dark eyes flickered an unnamed emotion, one that hinted at his regret for every single life choice that had led him to facing these two men as prisoners.

The silence grew heavy and expectant, as it should on such occasions. 

“Well, well, well,” Gawain drawled, tossing his head back to get the hair out of his eyes, “look who it is.”

There were a couple of surprised rustles, as the paladins exchanged slightly confused glances.

“Paladins?” the ginger lad ventured, sounding, for some reason, uncertain, but ready to risk it. He looked very optimistic; Lancelot was starting to really like him.

“Correct!” Gawain cried out with another triumphant toss of his head. “You, young man, get some of Orkney’s cider.”

The ginger-head beamed at them, but before he could reach out for the wineskins clutched in the hands of his compatriots, the bearded paladin slapped him at the wrist with the sword, before turning to glower at his prisoners.

“Alright, let’s make it clear, Green Knight,” he frowned, “I am the one in command here. This is my camp. And all of your cider is already mine. ”

Lancelot squeezed his eyes shut and breathed through his mouth to suppress the urge to point out that Gawain hated this moniker, always complaining that it was some embarrassing mix up in the very beginning of the resistance, much the same way Morgana had. Luckily, the knight seemed more than capable of translating his displeasure into the chilling tone that made Lancelot and at least a couple of paladins shiver.

“Is it,” he challenged, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t think so.”

“Yes,” the man frowned, obviously taken aback by someone’s ability to so defiantly deny such an obvious thing out of what appeared to be sheer spite. It was painfully clear they hadn't known the knight for very long, Lancelot thought, sighing to himself, and then closed his eyes again, knowingly. Because Gawain shifted behind him, straightening, and when he did that— 

“Why don’t you search again,” he drawled, squirming in the ropes in a way that made a few paladins cross themselves. Momentarily forgetting he was no longer a devout Catholic, Lancelot dearly wished he could do the same, as he strained against the bounds himself. All he really wanted was to be far away from Gawain when he was weaponizing his debauchery.

Mostly because it was working on him far more than it was on the enemies, but he could hardly say that out loud. If anyone noticed his reaction, he would never live it down — assuming they got out of this unscathed  _ — and Gawain must not know. _

That was not much to ask. Surely, he had suffered enough to grant him this small mercy.

The camp leader’s bushy brows drew together, and after a short moment of chewing on his moustache, he jerked his head, commanding two of his brothers to move. 

Lancelot could almost hear the Gods laugh and clink their glasses, when the paladins, encouraged by the scattered cheers, edged towards them. Someone was mumbling a prayer under their breath, while someone else asked to pass the cider. 

“Bring it on,” Gawain said between his teeth and threw his head back; on the periphery of his vision, Lancelot saw the red strand, felt it tickle his cheek; and, his fighting spirit reinvigorated, struggled again, trying to reach one of the daggers strapped on his hip. “Let’s see how strong your faith is.”

Judging from the strained, choked off sounds uttered by several paladins, the foundations of their faith were already crumbling, unable to withstand the sheer power of Gawain sitting silently with one leg awkwardly turned and his hair dishevelled. 

With every second of the search, the men grew progressively more flustered, especially when the knight started encouraging them with low, barely audible hums. They were so obviously the mocking ones, Lancelot could not even find it in himself to be angry, and just bowed his head, biting back a smile.

The paladins, on the other hand, were on the verge of a heart attack. However, they showed admirable resilience to devilish charms — right until they pulled a tiny bundle out of one of the pouches strapped to the belt. Reading a short prayer, they gingerly unwrapped it.

If they had found the Holy Grail, it would have probably not evoked such a reaction. It took them a moment to understand what they were looking at, but they got there.

Seriously, Lancelot thought, looking up with reproach. Seriously?

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw how the ginger paladin glanced around with such an obvious air of caution that he couldn’t help but wince in second-hand embarrassment. Then he winced again when the lad pocketed some of the loot, tentative hope written all over his face.

Behind his back, he knew Gawain was giving the paladins an encouraging grin, judging from how flustered the lad became the moment he glanced back at them. In the meantime, the leader watched the entire scene unfold with a vague air of disapproval but refrained from saying anything, just sighing once.

“Why did you bring _ —that— _ to the enemy camp?..” Lancelot forced out.

“You never know what can happen,” Gawain replied, and he would have sounded mysterious, if not for the minor detail of their current context. “It worked with Priamus.”

“I wish you were that prepared with _ the sword that you forgot.” _

Unbelievably, Gawain fell silent for a long moment, and the silence almost sounded contrite. However, he still rudely ignored Lancelot’s attempts at twisting around and biting him. He could have at least acknowledged the effort it took.

“I sometimes just find swords,” the knight confessed finally, sounding a little bit lost himself. “Those, on the other hand…”

The paladins exchanged glances with each other, doing complicated acrobatics with their eyebrows, before they withdrew to the safety of their group, while Lancelot was at a loss for words. One more devout joined them at the fire, the one he recognised as a torturer. He did not know the man — must have been a new one, given the grim incident with Brother Salt — but the bloodied leather pouch was unmistakable.

It was also a stark reminder of the situation they were in.

“I think you started this whole thing wrong,” Lancelot uttered, at last, dragged from the depths of second-hand embarrassment by the promise of a painful, prolonged death.

“Did I?” the knight gritted out, renewing his struggle against the ropes. The more he pulled, the more it bit in Lancelot’s neck, he hissed, digging his heels into the frozen ground to avoid both of them toppling over.

“Yes,” the voice of the paladins' leader sounded, and they both looked up simultaneously to see him stare them down with a distinctly thunderous look, “well-well-well was supposed to be my phrase. It is in the scripture.”

The awkward silence ensued.

“Is it?” Lancelot wondered, a faint frown creasing his forehead as he stared into the middle distance, trying to recall those particular words.

“Yes. In the updated edition. By His Grace.”

Lips twisting in a sneer, Lancelot rolled his shoulders. 

“Wicklow,” he breathed out grimly and Gawain agreed with a soft disgusted click in the back of his throat. Their shared loathing of the man was one of the first points of contact they had had, and it had only grown stronger since then.

“We can start again,” the knight offered, but the paladin just rolled his eyes. 

“No,” he said, emphasising his point by thrusting a sword forward until its tip rested right under Gawain’s chin. “We are not starting again. In fact, I have no idea why we are still talking about this and not anything useful.”

“It just happens around him,” Lancelot muttered, feeling how Gawain vibrated against his back — he did it sometimes when he was very focused on glaring defiantly at his foes. “If it’s any consolation, we can’t make him shut up either.” 

“Have you tried a gag?” The man suggested with enthusiasm, to which he just sighed mournfully.

“He ate it.”

The paladins fell silent, and for a bit, the only sound was the rustle of wind and the faint vibration of steel as Gawain kept staring the paladin down.

“... I am not wasting materials like that,” the torturer finally said with a slightly hysterical note in his voice, and then shook his head for emphasis. “I am already working with old tools, and the pay is shit, I am always covered in blood, my own children weep when I come home — in fact, you know what? I quit. It’s a new year. New life. I deserve better than this.”

With that, he took the cross off his neck, threw it on the ground and retreated into the night, taking the bag of torture devices with him. His sudden departure was followed by the eyes of the remaining paladins, as they stood in stunned silence. The wind picked up, howling like a wounded beast in the shallow depth of the alder grove.

“Well,” their leader finally said, sounding rather philosophical about the loss, which was very Christian of him. “I guess we will just have to kill you then.”

The paladins exchanged anxious glances, not in any hurry to approach Gawain, who was starting to vibrate again, though it was really Lancelot they should have been worried about because he had almost managed to reach his knife. 

It wasn’t their fault he still had one. They could not have possibly expected to find it there, or probably just naively assumed the first dozen knives he had surrendered were all he had. Gawain always told him it was a stupid place to hide a knife, because it was likely to get stuck if he tried to pull it out while bound, and now Lancelot was filled with vindictive glee at proving him wrong.

Looking around, the older paladin sighed, his beard bristling unhappily. “Someone needs to do it. Galahad? You go.”

At that moment, the knife got stuck. After yanking it again, which only led to Lancelot nearly spraining his wrist, he froze, flustered and defeated. He could feel the unspoken “I told you so” in the pointed silence radiating from Gawain’s back.

“I don’t think it‘s very fair, Bran,” Galahad muttered, eyeing them both suspiciously. Unlike the other paladins, who have been mostly focused on the knight, he kept staring at Lancelot with clear, bright blue eyes that made him squirm like a snake pinned by a spear.

“Life is not fair,” Gawain announced solemnly, and for a second, everyone fell in respectful silence, digesting the statement, but then he finished, “unless you are me.”

Sensing that the situation would turn decidedly not in their favour if he allowed Gawain to keep talking, Lancelot tried to summon all the eloquence he had, remembering his rhetorics lessons back in the abbey.

“Sirs,” he called out in a strong, clear voice that made everyone, including for some reason Gawain, startle. “Please — we are wanted criminals and nobility. You can get a generous ransom if you keep us alive. Besides, we have information.”

He was probably overselling it.

“What kind of information?” Bran asked warily.

“The—”, Lancelot frantically tried to remember something of lesser importance that could still present value for the besiegers, “—the location of secret passages into the castle.”

He felt Gawain freeze while their captors exchanged thoughtful glances. Belatedly, Lancelot realised that saying things like that was perhaps not the best way to prove his loyalties, a topic that was still somewhat of a sore point, as much as they both liked to deny it.

Despite his sceptical expression, there was a note of curiosity in Bran’s tone when he spoke again. “And where, pray tell, is it?”

Sweating profusely despite the cold air, Lancelot tried to think of a way to fix the situation and fell back on the familiar solution.

“Don’t you have to torture me first?” He inquired with a note of proud defiance and felt Gawain relax marginally against his back. That hurt a bit, but less than the tense silence from before.

Unfortunately, Bran did not appear bloodthirsty enough to follow through on this very solid plan, as he winced and scratched his beard. “I mean, with Malory gone, well, we’re not really good at that. Do you truly want us to try?”

Thrown off by the amiable tone, Lancelot froze and considered the perspective of being tortured by amateurs. He would probably end up having to show them how to do it. It would be embarrassing for everyone involved, and Gawain might think him even more strange than he already did. 

“Not particularly, no,” he paused. “You’re very polite.” Then he tried to keep silent, but despite his best efforts, could not help his manners, words bursting out. “It’s on the west wall. Behind a huge boulder.”

Nailed this negotiation, Lancelot thought, seeing the paladins’ delighted faces — Father would have been so proud. Then the way the men, who crowded closer together to discuss the information, were glancing at him as if he had sprouted a second head gave him another pause. 

And then Gawain exhaled in a slow, deep way that usually preceded the sound of the sword being unsheathed. 

“Lancelot,” he gritted out, “what the hell are you doing.”

“Relax,” he murmured, low enough that paladins wouldn’t hear. “Arthur fixed it this week.”

Gawain’s voice was, somehow, even darker when he said: 

“No, he didn’t.”

“What do you mean he didn’t? Yes, he did,” Lancelot huffed, unwilling to face a nagging suspicion forming like a void in his stomach. He was proficient at dodging those slippery thoughts.

_ “He didn’t.  _ He was in the infirmary that day, you told me yourself.”

Lancelot suddenly felt very nauseous. But before he could explain it was a genuine mistake, Bran walked closer, studying them with a speculative tilt to his head.

“We can still kill you now,” he informed them, sounding as if he was willing to listen to their suggestions of why that might not be the best course of action.

In the last valiant effort to rectify the situation, Lancelot opened his mouth, but, to the relief of everyone involved, Gawain beat him to it.

“It can only open at dawn,” he said with absolute confidence, despite it being a blatant lie. “And you need us — to—,” the paladins waited politely, not hurrying him as he looked for words, “cast the spell.”

To his credit, Bran did not go down easily, as he glanced between them, scratching his beard again and then nodded at Lancelot, who sat very quietly now. “Both of you?”

“Where he goes, I go,” Gawain said proudly, which momentarily alleviated all the pains of Lancelot, who had started to wonder in the last hour if he had developed a heart ailment that somehow affected his brain. Well, more than the one currently tied to him with a rope.

The man paused, gaze slowly migrating between them as he seemed to consider how to proceed with this revelation. “Alright, not what—actually, that is remarkable. Does he know?”

“I do now,” Lancelot piped in because, despite his suboptimal performance in negotiations, he still clung to his reputation of an astute person. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Gawain deadpanned at the same time. 

“... Just untie me. I’ll kill him myself, at least that only I can do,” Lancelot muttered, so quietly that no one could hear.

Bran huffed and finally sheathed his sword, crossing his arms. 

“Come on. I am Catholic, not blind, like your friend,” he reasoned, sounding strangely sympathetic. “Really, you should probably talk about it before we burn you.”

“I am not blind, why does everyone say that?” Lancelot muttered.

“Shut up,” Gawain hissed, baring his teeth. “Not you, Lancelot. What’s your name? Bran? Shut up or I will haunt you after my death. I will rattle your kettle. I will defile the ghost of your grandmother. I will...”

The following suggestions were too filthy for Lancelot to comprehend, and he was not sure the human anatomy even allowed them. However, Gawain was a very creative person with an uncanny ability to make the world participate in his shenanigans. It was reflected clearly in his confident tone as the knight kept speaking.

“Jesus,” one of the paladins murmured, impressed but also properly terrified.

“Bran,” the same ginger lad from before whispered — he seemed rather invested in this entire affair, even having retrieved from somewhere what looked like parchment with a bounty notice. “I think the green one, I think he's that knight—one of King Lot’s sons?”

The stream of insults stumbled and then trickled into an angry, heavy exhale.  _ “Gawain. _ My name is Gawain.”

“Let me see,” Bran gestured impatiently and then, without waiting, snatched the bounty notice out of the boy’s clenched fingers, nearly tearing it in half. With a suspicious frown, he glanced between the parchment and the knight. “Seriously? It’s him?”

“They always get his eyes wrong,” Lancelot noted absently, as he tried to scratch the tip of his nose on his shoulder without breaking his neck. “Can’t quite do them justice.”

“I didn’t know you noticed,” Gawain said, sounding very touched. “I thought it was just my vanity speaking.”

It was certainly that, as well, but Lancelot was not going to say it. Everyone was allowed their quirks; and, if Gawain insisted on having an entire wall plastered with his own poorly drawn face, then so be it. He always said he just found it immensely amusing that no one caught for the longest time that King Lot’s runaway heir was also the leader of the Fey resistance. That was, by far, not the worst one had to deal with if they lived in the same castle as the knight.

“No, it’s not that,” Bran frowned, shaking his head. “I just thought he would be taller.”

Gawain blanched.

“Say that again,” he uttered in such a clear and low voice it was as if the alcohol evaporated at the heat of his righteous fury. Which was not very righteous, because not even he could bend the truth that much.

“Gawain, it’s alright,” Lancelot tried, tilting his head back as he did his best to nudge it against the knight in the closest thing to caress the ropes allowed — but missed. “No one is judging.”

“Yeah,” one of the paladins roasting meat by the fire nodded seriously, “our camps are a safe place for short people.”

“See?” He murmured, stretching his neck, and this time he managed to at least brush the backs of their heads. “I told you it’s a small thing.”

“Listen, Du Lac,” Gawain muttered through clenched teeth, “you’re supposed to be on  _ my  _ side.”

“And I am,” he replied sheepishly, and then added, much quieter. “I think that’s part of the problem.”

“Quiet, you two,” Bran called out, and they politely fell silent, mostly to process their own feelings, which was as uncomfortable and taxing an exercise as using a muscle you never knew you even had. 

Squinting at the parchment again, the man rubbed at his beard and perked up. “Dinadan! Come here — does it look like him?”

The man, who was just passing by from one campfire to another, stopped, glanced at them, said, “Hi, Gawain,” then took a brief look at the notice over Bran’s shoulder and snorted. 

“Yeah, that’s him alright,” he said, popping a dried berry in his mouth before nodding at the knight. “You’ll love this one, the jawline alone is—”, he clicked his fingers, “—grandiose.”

“Go to hell, Dinadan,” Gawain said with the prim tone of an old lady watching the vandals ravage her rose bushes.

“Just from there—they say they miss you,” the man grinned, picking up another berry from the handful of them cradled in his palm. “Roges sends his regards.”

“Oh, how is he?” Gawain perked up, shifting in a way that made Lancelot hiss again, rope biting into his chest. “All good?”

“Yeah, the little imp is on fire. As in, he is writing some kind of a roman? Said he’s had an inspiration for years after meeting you. There is a lot more he wanted to say, I have a letter—remind me to give it to you, if you don’t die, otherwise I guess he’ll say it himself.”

An awkward silence followed, as everyone turned to Bran, who had been watching the exchange with increasing unease, just like the rest of the paladins. A frown knitting his brows together, the man pursed his lips and squinted, but then waved his hand. 

“They’re good until sunrise — King Lot should send a reply by then. And if the Abbot asks, we can always say their pyre was the—” he squinted, as if trying to remember the words, then snapped his fingers, “—the dawn of a new era, that’s it.”

“A bit cliché, but with this crowd, it will work,” Dinadan approved, before waving his fingers at them and sauntering off to another campfire, summoned by pleas to play one of Lady Hildegard of Bingen’s songs. 

The cauldron was simmering merrily, the potent scent of apples drifting off it, mingling with the mouth-watering smell of roasted meat. However, none of that appealed to Lancelot, who was having a tough time trying to process what he had just heard.

“Gawain? Do you—have friends in Hell?...” He asked, uncertainty creeping into his voice. It would be supremely foolish of him to change sides a third time; there must have been a limit to the number of profound self-existential crises one could have in a span of two decades, after all, a royal decree or something. King Uther seemed like the kind of man to get that problem.

“Yes—it doesn’t matter right now, Lance, look—the cider is working,” Gawain whispered, a little bit too loud because the cider was a double-edged sword.

“I know,” Lancelot replied, much quieter, glancing at the paladins, who were growing progressively merrier with every chug of the hellish brew.

There was little for them to do but wait now, and so they watched their enemies make merry. From time to time, to be polite, they attempted to wiggle out of the ropes, but somehow only tightened them. 

That, and an overall unfortunate turn of events, must have been difficult enough to ignore even for the usually resilient Gawain. The knight fell quiet for a short while before speaking again, this time in a much darker voice.

“Lancelot,” he murmured. “I hate to ask, but you’re not trying to betray me, are you?”

“Of course not,” Lancelot replied, trying to twist around so that he could look the man in the eye. “Why would you ask such a thing?”

“It’s just that you first agreed that I was short, which is malicious slander. Then you told them about the secret passage to my castle. And  _ then _ you said that if anyone kills me, it should be you—yes, I heard. A man can get ideas, you know.”

“I am just — I am bad with words, Gawain,” Lancelot stuttered, chest heaving for air, the rope tugging painfully under his ribs. “It is not what I meant at all.”

“What did you mean, then?”

For some time, Lancelot kept silent as he thought about a great many things. About how they might, theoretically, die at dawn. About how Gawain was very warm and solid against his back, despite the thick layers of winter garments separating them.

“I have feelings for you.”

Gawain’s breath caught in his throat. “You do?”

“Yes. A lot.”

“Feelings as in...?”

“Hey, demons!” One of the paladins called out, tipping his tankard at them threateningly. “Talk it out when you’re dead!”

“Oi, fuck off! I am trying to get my friend to confess his feelings for me!” Gawain turned back to him. “Don’t listen to them, Lancelot. Go on.”

Then Bran appeared at their side, coughing with surprising delicacy for his appearance. “Listen, I am truly sorry to interrupt, but can you please figure this out outside of our camp? We’re honest Catholics, whatever people might say.”

With a damning inhale, Gawain expressed his doubts in a short but expressive string of expletives, most of which were in other languages, but the meaning was conveyed clearly by the sheer modulations of his voice.

“... also, you are burning the cross right now,” he finished, nodding at one of the campfires. Glancing over, Lancelot realised, with an aghast gasp, that indeed they were doing just that.

Immediately, Bran’s face darkened, and he sniffled, wiping his nose with the frozen sleeve, which must have hurt. “Well. We weren’t going to — but that was before we ended up in an enchanted forest where you can’t cut a single bloody tree down.”

Judging by Gawain’s silence, it was new information for him as well, so Lancelot picked up a thread of conversation to avoid giving away how Fey themselves were unaware of the magical properties of the land. It was not that surprising, given that most tribes had never lived here before the war, but he was intent on guarding the vulnerable spots after his fiasco with the secret passage.

“Why don’t you just relocate?” He wondered aloud, and a chorus of dejected sighs and mutterings sounded around him.

“Abbot’s orders,” Bran said grimly, poking a stick at the coals with such viciousness that Lancelot paused his surreptitious attempts to loosen the ropes. Narrowing his eyes, he looked around and saw equally dismayed and frustrated grimaces on each paladin’s faces. The aloof boy, Galahad, kept a stoic facade, but even he could not help a disapproving curl to the corner of his lips. On him, it somehow looked more grave than some of the most severe scowls Lancelot had ever seen.

“Are you thinking what I am thinking?” he murmured, shifting against the knight who had been suspiciously quiet for a while.

“That we should kiss?” Gawain said dreamily and sighed. “Yeah.”

“What? No!” frowned Lancelot. “They seem to dislike the Abbot—wait. You want to kiss me?”

“Obviously.”

After a brief stunned silence, Lancelot started struggling with renewed vigour, rope digging hard into his elbows and shoulders, but he was past caring about it. “We’re getting out alive. Both of us.”

“Was that even a question?” Gawain wondered, sounding strangely distant, as he threw his head back, and then lowered it again, straining to keep upright against the struggle.

“Well, I had three escape plans that ended with me sacrificing myself,” Lancelot admitted, wincing at the punched out sound that the knight made. “But, now I think I won’t use them anymore.”

“Yes, do me a favour,” Gawain replied, his voice now quivering with anger. “Are there any plans in that bright head of yours that do not end with a body count to rival En—never mind...”

“En-what?..” Lancelot raised his head to clarify absently. Then he lowered it back down to continue trying to figure out what kind of knot the paladins used. It was some kind of beginner’s luck, must have been, because he was an expert in tying people, and still he had no idea what that monstrosity was.

“One of the castles I wiped out, that’s how I know Roges—there is really no simple way to tell this—I will try in verse—”

“—Please don’t—” Lancelot muttered out of habit, squinting at the knot.

“—but if you still want to talk to me after this—”

“—I think we’re even—of course I want to talk to you, how is this related?”

But before Gawain could answer or, instead dodge the question, the amiable chatter died down, giving place to something truly horrendous — drunk carol singing. 

“Deep the silence ’round us spreading...” One of the men began, terribly off-tune, and Lancelot tried, he  _ really _ tried to endure that torture. Breaking into a cold sweat, he bit into his lip to keep silent, squeezing his eyes shut and squirming. 

Distantly, he heard Gawain ask something in a worried voice, but then the paladin could not quite pronounce the word “discerning” and Lancelot broke down.

“... by the hope within us burning,” he finished for him, and though his voice wasn’t loud, dead silence fell over the clearing. The crackle of fire was now the loudest thing, as the paladins stared at him, clutching the wineskins and wooden tankards in their hands, ruddy with cold.

“What did you say?”

Jutting his chin up, Lancelot narrowed his eyes and glanced at Bran, who was looking at him with suspiciously narrowed eyes. The flames reflected in the man’s dark irises — a dangerous, warning gleam, which sent a familiar thrill of defiance through Lancelot. It heated his blood better than any cider, making him straighten as much as he could.

“By the hope within us burning,” he repeated, voice as crisp and clear as the winter air between them.

The man propped his chin on a fist and frowned: “Say it again.”

Pursing his lips, Lancelot paused, but truth be told, he was quite used to repeating things. He had a quiet voice. Also, people were mean to him. 

So he did repeat it. This time singing the line properly, instead of merely trying to alleviate the nagging itch in his brain that he got every time someone did something worse than they should have. There were many such occasions, but none quite so bad as that carol.

Something shifted in Bran’s face, mellowed out like ice thawing. Glancing around, Lancelot saw that everyone was still looking at him, and frowned, fidgeting in the ropes. His skin crawled at being the centre of attention even if the solid line of Gawain’s back took the edge off.

“Sing for us?” The ginger lad suggested hopefully, and he seemed to express what was on everyone else’s mind, because the other men nodded eagerly, their eyes riveted to Lancelot as if he was a travelling minstrel. Perhaps, they should have gone with that disguise, after all.

“I—now? Here?” His frown deepened because it seemed a rather strange way to sing the Christmas carols.

“Why not?” Bran shrugged. 

“It is better with music,” Lancelot blurted, grasping for straws.

“Excuses,” the paladin cut him off, not unkindly. “We are simple people to please; some fire, some singing and we’re happy.”

“Those are not excuses but objective factors,” he muttered, feeling Gawain tense again.

“Will this work?” Dinadan asked suddenly, making everyone jump and clutch at their chests. Somehow, he had snuck up on them and was now sitting on the log, chewing on something — it was a mystery how the man was thin as a twig. Raising his brows, he lifted his lute. 

Lancelot — who had run out of objective factors — nodded, feeling the weight of everyone’s staring crush him like an avalanche. 

Worrying his lip for another beat, he took a deep breath, rolled his shoulders back, and began to sing. It took them a moment or two to interweave the voice and the music properly, but soon the sound flowed smoothly like melted silver, bright and dazzling in the campfire light.

His voice carried far and rang clearly in the crisp night air, and one by one, the paladins seemed to fall under its spell, their faces losing some of the feral, hardened edge of people finding themselves in positions they never sought. Lancelot coughed once, choking on the cold air, mentally waved goodbye to his voice tomorrow — and probably the rest of the week as well — then carefully sucked some air in, and continued singing.

“From the hope of dawn we borrow,” he started the last verse, faltered, feeling Gawain start, but steeled himself and found his voice again. “... promise of a glad tomorrow — all through the night.”

For a moment, it was like his words still echoed around the campfire, the flickers of flames chasing after their shadows. The paladins wiped at their eyes. Gawain was quiet against his back, but then he heard him draw a soft, shaky inhale in as well.

The paladins clapped, a scattered but heartfelt applause that made Lancelot first frown and then redden a bit, glancing away as he kicked one of the pebbles on the ground with the toe of his boot.

“How is that you sing like an angel if you’re a demon,” one of the brothers said, dotting at his bloodshot eyes with a piece of red cloth before blowing his nose thunderously.

“Give him something to drink,” Bran called out, and in a moment, he tilted a cup of heated cider into Lancelot’s mouth, for which he was ridiculously grateful. Gawain made a soft inquisitive noise too, but was studiously ignored. 

“Sing The Friendly Beasts!” Someone hollered, and the paladins bellowed with laughter, the mood brightening as the fire flared up, sparks shooting to the dark, silent sky.

Lancelot obliged. Scrambling to recall the words, he hummed the first line, then coughed delicately and started singing. This time, the applause was louder, and, against his own will, he sighed happily—it did not go quite so badly.

Neither did the next four carols.

Then he tapped out, giving a solid reason—namely, saving his voice for a dramatic speech before being burned—which promptly reminded everyone of the circumstances. The crowd quieted, exchanging uncertain looks.

“They do seem like alright fellows,” Bran muttered thoughtfully, squinting at the fire and then glancing back at Lancelot.

Galahad frowned, even though he also had suspiciously bright eyes and was chewing on his lip, something young and vulnerable finally breaking through the impassive facade.

“They are Fey,” he reminded helpfully. 

“And proud,” Gawain called out, earning himself an elbow in the ribs from Lancelot.

Glancing between them, Bran huffed into his beard, shaking his head before throwing it back and staring at the sky for a long moment. With his face illuminated by the soft glow of the campfire, it looked as if he was indeed a sage having a conversation with one deity or another. 

Lancelot watched him with bated breath, only once making a sound to shush Gawain. The knight kept trying to wiggle his way out of the ropes but immediately fell silent at the reprimand, also glancing over.

Finally, Bran looked back at them and then gestured for the other paladins.

“Untie them.”

Galahad looked up sharply from under the tousled golden curls, then scoffed and glanced away, pretending to ignore the unfolding mutiny. 

“But…” The ginger paladin stuttered, fidgeting with the hem of his robe. “Abbot’s orders…”

He was promptly shushed by the rest of the paladins, who muttered decidedly unflattering things under their breath, and then Bran stood up.

“Just go,” the man said and sniffled, the stern grimace breaking a bit as it gave way to irritation. “Fuck that Abbot anyway. Pretentious prick.”

With that, he spat on the ground and reached out for a refill of his tankard. Under the disbelieving stare of Lancelot, he knocked it back, wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand and drew a hunting knife from the sheathe on his belt. 

“See,” Gawain piped in, sounding absolutely delighted. “I told you that the weasel wouldn’t last long. Hey, fellas, want to switch sides? We have more cider.”

“Nay, Sir Fey,” the man shook his head as he sliced their ropes off. Lancelot made a soft, mournful noise, watching the knot perish undefeated. “Much obliged, but I have little ones to feed. Then, again, a sick mother.”

“Let me blow your mind,” Gawain muttered, rubbing at his wrists as the ropes fell away, before accepting the extended hand to get up, swaying slightly on his feet. With a pitiful groan, he rubbed his legs too, swearing under his breath. “We have medicine, too.”

The paladin paused, scratching at his beard and squinting. “Even for blindness?”

Gawain’s face lit up. “You’re in luck! I mean—no—but our healer works miracles with that. You should take Lancelot with you, he can’t see well either.”

Throwing his head back with a long-suffering sigh, Lancelot looked at the stars scattered above his head, dozens and dozens of them in absolute clarity, and they winked back at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lancelot is singing "Ar Hyd y Nos" ("All Through The Night") (see [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ar_Hyd_y_Nos)), a Welsh song that is sometimes considered a Christmas carol.  
> For the story about Roges, see Roman van Walewein. :)  
> The passage into the castle idea is inspired by LOTR.


	4. Want to Be Starting Something

In the end, Gawain ended up turning the entire bloody camp. 

Lancelot did not even know why he still felt surprised.

As it turned out, all the paladins were just as fed up with the Abbot as the Fey were — even more, given that they could not channel their distress into attempted murder. When Bran returned to the campfire and announced he was switching sides and everyone was welcome to join or leave the camp to go crawling back to the Trinity Guard, silence fell over the clearing. Anxious glances aplenty were exchanged, but as time went, no one moved to leave. 

“Well,” the man said, a wry smile he did not bother to hide in his beard graced his face. “Looks like that is settled.”

Watching Gawain and Bran stand side by side as they treated themselves to some more of the Orkney liquid legacy, Lancelot felt something in his chest shift and melt, like the ice sheets on the river breaking in the spring. The longest night of the year was drawing to its end.

Between the three of them — Lancelot, it was mostly Lancelot who refused any more cider before they were out of the woods — they still had enough wits to agree that bringing the entire paladin camp to the castle gates at night was not a sensible idea. With a promise to meet again in the morning, the men shook hands, and the two Fey finally departed.

As they waded through the brittle thicket back to the castle, Lancelot kept silent and Gawain, predictably, whistled a song under his breath. He kept trailing off, though, until finally, even the humming died down. 

With the cider left behind as a token of goodwill, the cold sobered them both up, leaving only the hushed silence in the air. It felt expectant — like a child watching the magic trick unfold with wary hope, equally likely to burst into laughter as it was to hide its face behind its hands.

And then the snow began to fall.

Lancelot smelled it first — the crisp frost suffusing the air, and then when he looked up, a snowflake landed right in his eye. Blinking rapidly, he looked down, seeking Gawain without thought and finding him also glancing up with a wry smirk on his face. His lips, red and chapped from the cold, opened slightly as he caught one of the white flakes on his tongue.

“We missed the dancing,” Lancelot said suddenly, snow clinging stubbornly to his eyelashes and dripping down the marks on his face. Must have been the flickering heat on his cheeks that melted it so fast, he thought distantly.

Raising his brows, the knight squinted at him, one corner of his lips ticking up in a lazy smirk. The scatter of brittle melting ice in his red hair grew fast as the snow started to fall in earnest. “Didn’t think you’d say that.”

“Well, I just did,” he swallowed, worrying the hem of his glove. “Aren’t you upset about it?”

A slow smile spread on the knight’s face as he tilted his head. “Are you trying to say you finally want to try?”

“Maybe,” Lancelot replied cautiously. He took his fingers away from his wrist, let them fall, and tugged the gloves off, tucking them behind his belt.

Not taking his eyes off him, Gawain slowly extended his hand, turned it palm up, and Lancelot swallowed around a lump in his throat.

“I don’t know how,” he warned, even though it was hardly the reason his heart was fluttering like a bird, rushing in all the wrong directions and beating against his ribs like mad.

“What does it matter?” Gawain replied quietly. “There is no one to see.”

Lancelot opened his mouth to argue that it did not matter as long as  _ he _ knew, but before he could say anything, he caught the look in the other’s eyes, and the words got stuck in his throat. There was his reply already, a warm, calm flicker of green, nothing like the sharp gleam of jade Gawain showed to the rest of the world. Perhaps he was not the only one tired of the audience.

Swallowing, Lancelot finally put his hand into Gawain’s. 

The first step was still footwork in a fight rather than that laughing flight he saw others get lost in. His entire body was too high strung, the gestures rough and at once too predatory and too defensive. But then Gawain spun him around for the first time, and Lancelot was so surprised, he stumbled, and then flushed, the apology on the tip of his tongue, scathing shame flooding his chest.

“Keep going,” Gawain murmured, his face set in such a serious, focused expression, that Lancelot faltered, wanted to ask what was wrong — but then he saw how the other’s eyes flickered down, felt him squeeze his hands just a bit tighter, a gentle, reassuring gesture. After a moment’s pause, he moved again, following the vague idea of where his feet were to go.

It seemed to be the correct guess, and then slowly, the rough angles started to give way to a more graceful pattern. After all, he had always been a fast learner and watched that fascinating activity enough to know the gist.

Even though he faltered a few turns, Gawain was there, catching him before he could fall out of the rhythm completely. He redictered the mistakes into some spin or another that he improvised on the spot — and Lancelot suspected if anyone would have been watching, they would not even suspect something was off. 

But no one was watching — and bit by bit, he felt the tension drain out of his limbs. In a couple more steps, he finally caught the flow that his body seemed eager to follow without any logical input from his brain. It might not have been any of the dances he had ever seen in the ballrooms of the castles, or on the harvest festivals in the villages, or in the halls of the taverns. It might not have been any of the dances ever invented even, to be honest. 

But it was alright. 

Everything was alright, Lancelot thought, giddiness rising in his chest and bubbling in his throat like laughter, as he weaved the steps and spun around again and again. The smile on Gawain’s face was now unabashed in its happiness, breathtaking and blinding. Warmed by it, from his racing heart to the tips of his fingers. Lancelot felt invincible — until he ended up tripping over a root and taking them both down. 

The knight barely managed to soften the fall by twisting them around, letting out a surprised squeak in the process. It would probably do nicely for blackmail material — if anyone heard him do it. 

But no one did. Just like they did not hear Lancelot laugh, cut short and startled by the sound he had never thought he would have a reason for again.

Gawain, it seemed, was just as surprised, even though he tried to cover it. Still, his eyes were a bit too soft, and even his nonchalant crooked grin faltered a bit as he looked down on him. When Lancelot glanced up, searching his eyes, it felt like the pull that the dance had started was still guiding him closer — a hunch he was intent on following, fingers digging into Gawain’s arms for purchase, as they kept staring at each other. 

“It was good, right?” Lancelot wondered in a tentative exhale that left no air in his lungs — or so it felt, because right now his entire being seemed to be woven out of thrilled and hopeful exaggerations.

And Gawain’s face shifted, split open like a raw wound, when he breathed out a soft: “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

Taking a sharp inhale, Lancelot tilted his head, still not letting go of the knight’s cold hands, the skin turned red and tender, not protected by the embrace of the winter furs. Without a thought, he slid his own palms over them to offer some warmth.

The knight blinked, a slightly lost expression on his face as if trying to remember how to breathe and finding it startlingly new. With a barely audible inhale, he leant closer. His lips skimmed over the corner of Lancelot’s mouth, breath tickling over the sensitive skin when he exhaled. 

Shivering at the feeling, Lancelot lingered for a moment longer on the precipice—savouring the bittersweet feeling—before turning his head, raising his hand to gently catch Gawain’s chin and draw him in.

Later, when he thought about it, he could not find the words that would amount to anything worthy of it. But at that moment, Lancelot cared very little for anything but the feeling of Gawain grinning briefly against his lips before pressing closer again.

However stumbling his words and dancing were, he seemed to have a knack for kisses, judging by the red flush he saw on Gawain’s cheeks after pulling back. His always secretly guarded eyes were now wide and brimming with light, so full of it, that Lancelot couldn’t help but grin, hiding his face in his neck. 

They lay in silence for a bit longer, paying no attention to the cold. They might have kissed, too. Once or twice. Maybe more. There was no one to count.

Pulling back, Lancelot inhaled deeply and tried to fight the dazed smile spreading on his face. But what felt like a little sun of his own blooming in his chest was demanding. It did not want to hide anymore. In awe of it, he couldn’t help a short laugh, a tiny cloud of breath escaping his mouth. He felt a bit like a dragon right now. If there were any happy dragons, that is.

Those green eyes flickered up, following the raising vapour, and then returned to his face. Seeing a smile curling the corner of the knight’s lips up, Lancelot chased it, savoured the way it felt against his own grin.

“We should go back,” Gawain murmured, brushing a thumb over the dimple on his cheek. He shifted up, pulling Lancelot along and drawing them both towards the edge of the woods.

He couldn’t quite recall how they got back. The trees parted and they found the horses still alive and well, a suspicious tuff of grey fur hanging from Gringolet’s lips, but nothing else out of the ordinary. There was a lot of indignant snorting, which they did earn for leaving the animals alone for so long in the cold. Luckily, the tiny apples Gawain fished out of the saddlebags seemed to appease the horses enough to let the men actually ride back instead of walking.

Then it was all a blur of stairwells and galleries, their footsteps echoing through the hallways, tapestries and torches flicking past. Even though they tried to be discreet about it, not willing to lose any time fighting off the curious questions, their fingers stayed intertwined as Gawain led him to the northern tower. 

At that hour of the night, the epicentre of celebration had not yet moved from the main hall. They still met a good dozen or so close acquaintances on the way, but everyone was sufficiently in high spirits as not to notice any change. Once, Lancelot thought he caught a glimpse of Arthur rounding the corner, but then they dove into another gallery, luckily escaping the collision. At last, after a few more turns, they were tumbling inside Gawain’s chamber.

The door thudded loudly behind them, and then again because the stubborn draft kept trying to crawl into the room with them. With their joint efforts, they pushed it out and finally shut the door, leaning against it to make sure the cold stayed outside.

“Why am I out of breath,” Gawain wondered, trying to draw some air in, his chest heaving under the jacket, soaking wet with all the snow.

“No idea,” Lancelot replied, just as breathlessly, and surged up, catching the knight by the elbow again and drawing him closer. Then he yelped a bit, which was a very undignified sound, but Gawain’s fingers were icy old when they slipped under his collar.

“F-f-fire,” he stuttered out, shivers wracking his entire body as if he was a marionette shaken by a frustrated puppeteer. Giving a quick nod, Gawain dashed to the hearth and probably broke some records in how long it took one to start a fire. Numb fingers finally torn out of the icy gloves, Lancelot had the time to light up two candles before he was pulled away by another embrace.

Demonstrating an impressive amount of dexterity, they managed to get out of the cloaks and coats and only break apart once. The boots were discarded, flying at the oddest angles, but not a single ankle was twisted, despite Lancelot’s best efforts at once again being defeated by something trivial on his way to grace.

The bed creaked loudly when they fell on it in a haphazard pile of limbs, and they froze, waiting with bated breath for any further indication of an ancient piece of furniture falling apart.

“Jesus,” Lancelot muttered, letting out a relieved breath.

“That guy,” Gawain agreed, then squirmed up the bed, weaving his arms around the other man’s hips.

For a second, they stared at each other with cautious curiosity, so acutely aware of the newness of this position that their skin prickled. At least Lancelot’s did. But he was always freezing — at least right now he could finally solve that by leaning into Gawain.

When gentle fingers carded through his hair, tucking stray strands behind his ear, he almost purred. Well, he certainly made some happy sound — and then nudged the careful hand with his head, asking for more and being immediately granted it, which was a very thrilling experience.

“Can you show me what to do?” He said quietly, pressing a soft kiss to the knight’s knuckles. “I, uh, have little knowledge of how it works.”

He had none, but somehow it was less intimidating than he had imagined, with that soft, awed gaze on him, with a warm arm wrapped around his shoulders. Blinking once, Gawain let out a shaky chuckle and raised their interlocked hands, giving the kiss back, a corner of his mouth twitching against the dry skin.

“Gods,” he said, his voice wavering a bit, and then he laughed, shaking his head with a wry grin. “Sure. But I warn you, right now, it won’t be spectacular.”

Not bothering to fight back a relieved smile, Lancelot shrugged with one shoulder and reached up to draw the curtain, pale fingers standing out starkly against the dark red fabric. 

“Not here for the spectacle.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... *finally*.  
> The title is from Michael Jackson - Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', which I listened to an unhealthy number of times. That and ABBA - Dancing Queen, Martha and the Vandellas - (Love Is Like A) Heat Wave & MisterWives - Coloring Outside The Lines, in case you want to recreate that, well, unique atmosphere.


	5. To Watch the Daylight Win

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a reference to Lancelot burning down the villages & fields before.  
> The bow is purely the fault of the prompt generator :D

“Lance? Lance. Lancelot. Lancelot du Lac.”

“What.”

A gentle but insistent hand prodded him and he groaned. When he rolled onto his back, his shoulder bumped into something—warm, firm and excited—that was probably Gawain. The bright light of the day was unforgiving on his headache.

“Can you keep your eyes open? Just for a moment.”

Slinging a hand over his face, Lancelot considered it and was forced to admit he could, even though it required significantly more effort than usual. Still, he braced himself and gave a tiny nod.

“Uh—maybe also move?.. Sorry, I know it’s a lot.”

Blinking blearily, Lancelot raised his head. The world spun and danced around him, a shattered mosaic of messy auburn hair, white linen and tanned skin. As he tried to focus, it sharpened a bit, but at Gawain’s careless bouncing, the haze returned. Lancelot tried again.

“What is it?” he croaked out, propping up on one elbow.

And then he saw it.

For a moment, he stared at the gift, and then slowly shifted his eyes to the giver, who beamed at him, blissfully unaware of how close he was to being strangled. The open, hopeful look on his face tugged at Lancelot’s heartstrings. 

“It’s a bow,” Gawain sounded as if it was he receiving the present, nearly thrumming with excitement. “With a bow,” he added, as if wary that the pun would be lost, which was frankly the fate it deserved.

Glancing back at the bow, Lancelot squirmed down the bed and threw the fur aside, bending over to run his fingers over the polished wood. He marvelled at how finely crafted it was, at the delicate vines engraved on it. And there was indeed a green ribbon tied into a tiny bow around it.

“You won’t ever miss from it,” Gawain added, sounding just a bit nervous. 

His fingers tightened around the wood as he kept his eyes fixed on the oak leaves that looked as if they were blossoming, fluttering, withering and then bursting out again. “What do you mean?”

“It’s enchanted. Your every arrow will find its target.”

Closing his eyes, Lancelot took a slow breath in. The idea that the knight trusted him with a weapon like this after all the destruction his arrows had sown, flames growing from where he had planted them in the earth, was too much to process at the moment. 

With a shaky exhale, he pressed a hand against his eyes, then waved it weakly at Gawain when he made an attempt to hug him. Then, after a short hesitation, he sagged into an embrace, turning his head to nuzzle into the knight's shoulder.

“It’s—thank you. But—when did you have time to get it? You haven’t left the bed.”

“Yes, you made sure of that,” Gawain muttered, a sly grin tugging at his mouth as he glanced between him and the door, and then scratched at his beard. “A magic trick, let’s go with that.”

The bedframe creaked as he got up, reaching out for a jug of water that stood on the table. Now that Lancelot was a bit more awake, he saw that the light was indeed brighter than usual, his slight hangover notwithstanding. It seemed the snow had not stopped during the night.

A warm feeling swelling in his chest, Lancelot huffed softly, lowering his gaze back to the bow. “I’ll need to thank Merlin, then.” 

“It’s not only him,” Gawain remarked absently, as he filled the mug and then came back to sit on the edge of the bed.

In a blink, Lancelot’s gaze flew up, a confused frown touching his brow. “Who else?”

“Uh—a few?..” the knight frowned and then started talking, counting the accomplices off his fingers. “It was actually Arthur who brought it here. The quiver is also his work. But Squirrel carved the pattern—and Kaze crafted the arrows. Pym helped her, I think. I am honestly not sure, it was a mess. I could have done it myself, but they just kept coming to my door, demanding to be in on it. Lance, you alright there? Say something. Or blink twice if you want me to shut up.”

“No, don’t, it is…”

His throat closed, cutting him short, but he drew a shaky breath in and finished.

“It’s all I ever wanted.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... and we're done!  
> Is King Lot also done when he arrives and sees Gawain with Lancelot? Absolutely!
> 
> The chapter title is from Wedding Morn by D. H. Lawrence.
> 
> Oscar speech time: Huge, enormous, gargantuan thanks to Saighin, Sennex & Linza, who descended onto the text like a horde of benevolent conquerors on a city, leaving it all patched up and shiny <3 <3 <3 Valerin, thank you for cheering me on after my fifth breakdown while writing their first kiss <3  
> You're all amazing and it was a blast seeing you make your way through the doc!  
> Dear readers, leave me a comment, I'm terribly eager to hear what you think <3

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Christmas prompts from Lancewain Discord server.  
> Thank you, [@valerin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valerin/pseuds/Valerin%20Berenghar), for beta-reading <3


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